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TV Notes

By Eleanor Blau

Published: May 12, 1988

A Lip Theory of Identity ''Most of the things start in the lips.'' Daws Butler was telling how he slips into the voice of Jimmy Stewart or Charles Laughton - not to say Huckleberry Hound, whose 30th year will be celebrated with a cartoon movie on May 21 from 1 to 3 P.M., on Channel 5.

Mr. Butler, who started out as an impersonator in the 1930's in Chicago and then became the voice of countless animated figures, has talked for the laid-back hound since it first saw celluloid. He will do the same for Yogi Bear, Quick Draw McGraw and four other characters in the new movie, ''The Good, the Bad and Huckleberry Hound,'' a western in which Huck gets amnesia.

When he speaks of a character, its voice takes over.

''Huckleberry Hound talks with Southern elisions,'' the 72-year-old Mr. Butler drawled in a telephone conversation from his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. ''He's an easygoing guy. Yogi bear'' - switching identities - ''is very ebullient, and talks in a sort of rhythm: 'da-da-da-DA-da-da-da-da.' And Wallygater has a very ridiculous voice'' - Mr. Butler transformed himself into a low-pitched Ed Wynn - ''giggling all the time. Your mouth is in the position of a laugh, so words come out with a little chuckle.''

''If I were doing Jimmy Stewart,'' he said, doing him, ''Gee, I'd sort of -it's kind of a control of the lips, but there's a sort of numbness. Charles Laughton'' - suddenly haughty -''talks much slower. He had bulbous lips, unpleasant lips. When he talks, it's deliberate, self-serving.''

Mr. Butler says his vocal legerdemain rarely affects his everyday life. If he runs into someone with a knack for accents, he may engage in an impromptu dialogue, ''like jazz improvisation.'' But, he said, ''I don't play jokes on the phone or anything.'' Growing Up Garbo

Rare films of Greta Garbo's early film career in Sweden and Germany will be seen on Channel 13 on May 28 at 10 P.M. in ''Garbo,'' a two-hour documentary produced by Swedish Television. It traces the actress's life from her girlhood in Stockholm through her transition from the silents to talkies at M-G-M.

Immediately after the documentary, Channel 13 will show two Garbo films: ''Queen Christina'' (1933) and ''Anna Christie.'' Treating Depression

Four people who suffer from manic depression - swerving from grandiosity and extravagance to hopelessness and anxiety - are the subject of a documentary scheduled on May 31 at 11 P.M. on Channel 13.

The film maker and producer of ''Four Lives: Portraits of Manic Depression'' is Jonathan David, who has made other films on mental illness and who was impelled by a personal experience: when he was 18, his 23-year-old brother committed suicide.

''He taught me how to throw a curve, taught me about poetry and music,'' he recalled. ''I adored my brother.'' Mr. David, now 34, is sure his brother was manic depressive, misdiagnosed as schizophrenic and thus not treated with lithium or other medications that might have helped him, as they later helped his sister.

According to experts who appear in the documentary, many patients with these disorders are misdiagnosed, yet nearly 70 percent can expect improvement with appropriate medication and counseling.

In Mr. David's experience, most people don't really believe that manic depressives lack control over their mood swings. But the disorder results from a chemical imbalance affecting the brain, says a psychiatrist in the film, and is ''every bit as much a medical illness as hypertension, diabetes or cancer.''

The patients: a housepainter, a former Navy nurse, a graphic artist and the head of a depression support group, all residents of the Dallas-Fort Worth area, are seen at home, at work, talking with their psychiatrists and at meetings of support groups.

''Four Lives'' will be introduced by the actress Patty Duke, who suffered for years, she says, until she was diagnosed as manic depressive and treated successfully. An 800 telephone number for information and doctor referrals will be announced during the broadcast. Songs Without Words

Instead of television reruns during the writers' strike, how about operatic versions of shows? The possibility suggests itself from a report by Bob Hope that there will be lots of song (and dance) at his star-studded, 85th birthday tribute on NBC Monday, from 8 to 11 P.M., because lyric-writing is not covered by the Writers' Guild of America. The songs will obviously be accompanied. A union spokesman says a cappella is not exempt.